“Why does the man of Xibalba choose me for this greatness, when I am a dog?” called out Na-Yaxhal. It was a very promising rhetorical position for him to take.
“I choose you because you are the closest to human of all the dogs who bark in Zapotec, and because your wife is already a woman for two hours every day.” There, that would reward the old bat for speaking out in Hunahpu’s support.
Na-Yaxhal made up his mind and, as rapidly as his aging body—he was nearly thirty-five—would allow, he prostrated himself. The others in the village followed suit.
“Where are the women of Atetulka? Come out of hiding, you and all your children. Come out and see me! Among men I would be a king, but I am only the humblest servant of the King of Xibalba. Come out and see me!” Let’s lay the groundwork of somewhat more egalitarian treatment of women now, at the beginning. “Stand with your families, all of you!”
They milled around, but it took only a few moments—they already oriented themselves by clan and family, even when confronting an enemy, so it took little rearrangement to obey his command.
“Now, Na-Yaxhal, come forward. Take the first spine from my penis and paint the blood from it on your forehead, for you are the man who will be first king in the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth, as long as you serve me, for I am the servant of the King of Xibalba!”
Na-Yaxhal came forward and pulled out the stingray spine. Hunahpu did not wince because there was no pain, but he could tell how the stingray spine tugged at his skin and imagined how nasty the pain would be tonight. If I ever see Diko again I don’t want to hear her complain about anything she had to go through for the sake of our mission. Then he thought of the price Kemal intended to pay, and was ashamed.
Na-Yaxhal painted his forehead and nose, his lips and chin with the blood on the stingray spine.
“Six-Kauil’s-Daughter!” The woman emerged from the midst of the leading clan of the village. “Draw out the next spine. What is it made of?”
“Silver,” she said.
“Paint your neck with my blood.”
She drew the long silver spine across her neck.
“You will be the mother of kings and your strength will be in the ships of the Zapotec people, if you serve the King of Xibalba-on-Earth, and me, the servant of the King of Xibalba!”
“I will,” she murmured.
“Speak loudly!” Hunahpu commanded. “You did not whisper when you spoke wisely of the loose bowels of your husband! The voice of a woman can be heard as loud as the voice of a man, in the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth!”
That’s about all we can do for egalitarianism right now, Hunahpu said silently, but it should be revolutionary enough as the story spreads.
“Where is Yax!” cried Hunahpu.
The young man came forward timidly.
“Will you obey your father, and when he is carried to Xibalba will you lead this people in mercy and wisdom?”
Yax prostrated himself before Hunahpu.
“Take out the next spine. What is it made of?”
“Gold,” said Yax, when he had it out.
“Paint your chest with my blood. All the gold of the world will be yours to command, when you are worthy to become king, as long as you remember that it belongs to the King of Xibalba, and not to you or any man. You will share it freely and fairly with all who drink the blood and eat the flesh of the King of Xibalba.” That should help get the Catholic Church on the side of conciliation with the strange heretical proto-Christians when the two cultures met. If gold flowed freely to the Church, but only on condition that they confessed that they were eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the King of Xibalba, the heresy should find itself well on the way to become an acceptable variant of Catholic dogma. I wonder, thought Hunahpu, if I will be declared a saint. There will certainly be no lack of miracles, for a while, at least.
“Bacab, toolmaker, metalworker!” A thin young man came forward, and Hunahpu had him withdraw the next spine.
“It is copper, Lord One-Hunahpu,” said Bacab.
“Do you know copper? Can you work it better than any man?”
“I work it better than any man in this village, but there are surely other men in other places who work it better than I do.”
“You will learn to mix it with many metals. You will make tools that no one in the world has seen. Paint my blood upon your belly!”
The coppersmith did as he was told. After a king, a king’s wife, and a king’s son, the metalworkers would now have the most prestige in the new kingdom.
“Where is Xocol-Ha-Man? Where is the master shipbuilder?”
A strong man with massive shoulders emerged from another clan, smiling in pride and slapping his shoulders in piety.
“Take out the next spine, Xocol-Ha-Man. You who are named for a great river in flood, you must tell me, have you ever seen this metal before?”
Xocol-Ha-Man fingered the bronze, getting blood all over his fingers. “It looks like copper, only brighter,” he said. “I’ve never seen it.”
Bacab looked at it too, and also shook his head.
“Pee on this metal, Xocol-Ha-Man. Make the current of the ocean within you flow upon it! For you will not paint my blood on your body until you have found this metal in another land. You will build ships and you will sail them until you find the land in the north where they know the name of this metal. When you bring back the name of this metal to me, then you will paint my blood upon your groin.”
Only the iron spine remained. “Where is Xoc? Yes, I mean the slavegirl, the ugly girl you captured and no one would marry her!”
She was thrust forward, a filthy thirteen-year-old with a harelip.
“Take out the last spine, Xoc. Paint my blood upon your feet. For by the power of this last metal will the King of Xibalba make all slaves free. Today you are a free citizen of the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth, Xoc. You belong to no man or woman, for no man or woman belongs to any other. The King of Xibalba commands it! There are no captives, no slaves, no servants-for-life in the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth!”
For you, Tagiri.
But what he had given in pity was used in power. Xoc drew the iron spine from his penis and then, just as a Maya queen would have done, she stuck out her tongue, gripped the tip of it with her left hand, and with her right hand drove the spine through it. Blood flooded down her chin as the spine and her lips made a strange cross.
The people gasped. What Xoc was demanding was not the kindness of a lord toward a slave he plans to free, but the honor of a king for the queen who will bear his children.
What do I do with this? Who could have guessed, watching Xoc’s abject servility during her months of slavery, that she had this kind of ambition? What did she mean to accomplish? Hunahpu studied her face and saw in it—what, defiance? It was as if she saw through his whole charade and dared him to refuse her.
But no, it was not defiance. It was bravery in the face of fear. Of course she acted boldly. This kingly man who claimed to come from the land of the gods was the first chance she had to rise above her miserable condition. Who could blame her for acting as desperate people so often do, seizing on the first opportunity to reach far beyond all reasonable hope? What did she have to lose? In her despair, all salvation had seemed equally impossible. So why not try to be queen, as long as this One-Hunahpu seemed disposed to help her?
She is so ugly.
But smart and brave. Why close a door?
He reached down and drew the iron spine from her tongue. “Let truth flow from your mouth forever as blood does now. I am no king, and so I have no queen. But because you mixed your blood with mine upon this last spine, I promise that for the rest of your life, I will listen every day to one thing that you choose to tell me.”
Gravely she nodded, her face showing relief and pride. He had turned away her bid to be a consort, but had accepted her as a counselor. And as he knelt and painted her feet with the bloody spine, she could not help but know that her life had been changed comp
letely and forever. He had made her great in the eyes of those who had mistreated her.
As he rose to his feet, he put both hands on her shoulders and leaned close so he could whisper in her ear. “Do not seek vengeance now that you have power,” he said in pure Maya, knowing that her native dialect was close enough that she would understand him well enough. “Earn my respect by your generosity and truthfulness.”
“Thank you,” she answered.
Now back to the original script. I hope, thought Hunahpu, that there aren’t too many more surprises like this.
But of course there would be. All he could ever do was improvise. His plans would all have to be adapted; only his purposes were unchangeable.
He flung out his voice over the crowd. “Let Bacab touch this metal. Let Xocol-Ha-Man see it!”
The men came forward, studied it in awe. Alone of all the spines, it would not bend, not even slightly. “I have never seen a metal so strong,” said Bacab.
“Black,” said Xocol-Ha-Man.
“There are many kingdoms, far across the sea, where this metal is as common as copper is here. They will know how to smelt it until it shines white as silver. These kingdoms already know the King of Xibalba, but he has hidden many secrets from them. It is the will of the King of Xibalba that the Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth find this metal and master it, if you are worthy of it! But for now, this black metal spine will stay with Xoc, who once was a slave, and you will come to her or to her children in order to see if you have found the hard black metal. The faraway people call it ferro and herro and iron and fer, but you will call it xibex, for it comes from Xibalba and must only be used in the service of the King.”
The last of the spines was out of his body now. It made him feel pleasantly light, as if the weight of them had dragged him down.
“Let this now be a sign to all of you, that the King of Xibalba touches all men and women of the world. This village will be struck with a plague, but not one of you will die of it.” That promise had a chance of failure—the immunologists said that one in 100,000 would die of it. If one of those bad reactions came to Atetulka, Hunahpu would deal with it well enough. And compared to the millions who died of smallpox and other diseases in the old history, it was a small price to pay. “The plague will go forth from this village to every land, until all people have been touched by the finger of the King. And they will all say, From Atetulka came the sickness of the lords of Xibalba. It came first to you, because I came first to you, because the King of Xibalba chose you to lead the world. Not as the Mexica lead, in blood and cruelty, but as the King of Xibalba leads, in wisdom and strength.” Might as well make the immunity virus part of the divinity show.
He looked around at their faces. Awe, and surprise, and, here and there, resentment. Well, that was to be expected. The power structure in this village was going to be transformed many times over before this was finished. Somehow these people would become leaders of a great empire. Only a few of them would be up to the challenge; many would be left behind, because they were suited only to the life of a village. There was no dishonor in that, but some would feel left out and hurt. Hunahpu would try to teach them to be content with what was possible to them, teach them to take pride in the achievements of others. But he could not change human nature. Some of them would go to their graves hating him for the changes that he brought. And he could never tell them how their lives might have ended, had he not interfered.
“Where will One-Hunahpu live?” he asked.
“In my house!” cried Na-Yaxhal at once.
“Will I take the house of the king of Atetulka, when he is only now becoming a man? It has been the house of dog-men and women! No, you must build me a new house, here, on this very spot.” Hunahpu sat down cross-legged in the grass. “I will not move from this place until I have a new house around me. And over me, I will have a roof thatched from the roofs of all the houses of Atetulka. Na-Yaxhal, prove to me that you are a king. Organize your people to build me my house before darkness comes, and teach them their duties well enough that those who build it can do it without speaking a word.”
It was already midday, but impossible as the task might look to the people, Hunahpu knew that it was well within their capacity to do it. The story of the building of One-Hunahpu’s house would spread, and it would make others believe that they were indeed worthy to be the greatest city among the cities of the new Kingdom of Xibalba-on-Earth. Such stories were needed in forging a new nation with a will to empire. The people had to have an unshakable belief in their own worthiness.
And if they didn’t make it before nightfall, Hunahpu would simply fire up the basket of light and declare that the lords of Xibalba were lengthening the day with this piece of sunlight so they could finish building the house before nightfall. Either way, the story would be a good one.
The people quickly left him alone as Na-Yaxhal organized them to build him a house. Able to relax at last, Hunahpu got the disinfectant out of one of his bags and applied it to his wounded penis. It contained agents to promote clotting and healing, and soon the flow of blood would become mere seepage and then stop. Hunahpu’s hands trembled as he applied the salve. Not from pain, for that had not yet begun, nor even from loss of blood, but rather from relief after the tension of the ceremonies just past.
In retrospect it had been as easy to overawe these people as he had imagined it would be back when he had proposed his plan to the others in the lost future. Easy, but Hunahpu had never been so frightened in his life. How did Columbus manage it, boldly creating a future? Only because he knew so little of how futures could go wrong, Hunahpu decided, only because of ignorance could he shape the world so fearlessly.
“It’s hard to imagine that these are the great kingdoms of the east that we read about in Marco Polo’s account,” said Sánchez.
Cristoforo could hardly argue with him. Colba seemed vast enough to be the mainland of Asia, but the Indians insisted that it was an island and that another island to the southeast, called Haiti, was much richer and had far more gold. Could that be Cipangu? Possibly. But it was discouraging to have to keep assuring the sailors and, above all, the royal functionaries that untold wealth was just a few more days’ sailing away.
When would God allow him the moment of triumph? When would all the promises of gold and great kingdoms be obviously, clearly fulfilled so that he could return to Spain as Viceroy and Admiral of the Ocean-Sea?
“What does that matter?” said Don Pedro. “The greatest wealth of this place is before you in plain sight.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sánchez. “The only thing this land is wealthy in is trees and insects.”
“And people,” said Don Pedro. “The gentlest, most peaceful people I’ve ever seen. It will be no trouble at all to get them to work, and they’ll obey their masters perfectly. There’s no fight in them at all, can’t you see that? Can’t you imagine what price they would fetch as the most docile of servants?”
Cristoforo frowned. That same thought had occurred to him, but it troubled him all the same. Was it what the Lord had had in mind, to convert them and enslave them at the same time? Yet there was no other source of wealth in sight, here in the land God had led him to. And it was obvious that these savages were completely unfit to be made into soldiers in a Crusade.
If God had meant these savages to be free Christians, he would have taught them to wear clothing instead of going about naked.
“Of course,” said Cristoforo. “We will bring a sample of these people back to Their Majesties when we return. But I imagine that it will be more profitable to keep them here in the land they’re acclimated to, and use them to mine gold and other precious metals while we teach them of Christ and see to their salvation.”
The others heard him without disagreement—how could they argue with something so obviously true? Besides, they were still weak and weary from the illness that had swept through the crews of all three ships, obliging them to drop anchor and rest for several days. No
one died from it—it was nowhere near as virulent as the terrible plagues that the Portuguese had run into in Africa, forcing them to build their forts on offshore islands. But it had left Cristoforo with quite a headache, and he was sure the others suffered from it, too. If it didn’t hurt so much, he might wish for it to continue forever, since it kept them from raising their voices. The royal functionaries were much more tolerable when pain kept them from becoming strident.
They had been livid back when they reached the city called Cubanacán. Cristoforo had thought that the last syllable of the name referred to the Great Khan of Marco Polo’s writing, but when they reached the “city” the natives had babbled about, it turned out to be a miserable collection of huts, perhaps a bit more populated than the other squalid villages that they had seen on this island. City of the Khan indeed. Sánchez had dared to raise his voice then, in front of the men. Maybe this minor plague was God’s remonstrance against his insubordinate complaining. Maybe God wanted to give him something to whine about.
Tomorrow or the next day they would sail for Haiti. Perhaps there they would see some sign of the great civilizations of Cipangu or Cathay. And in the meantime, these miserable islands would at least be a source of slaves, and as long as the royal functionaries were willing to back him up, that might be enough to justify the cost of a second voyage, should they fail to find the Khan himself on this first trip.
Kemal sat glumly on the crest of the promontory, looking out to the northwest for a sail. Columbus was late.
And if he was late, all bets were off. It meant that some change had already been introduced, something that would delay him in Colba. Kemal might have been encouraged to think of this as proof that one of the others had successfully made the trip into the past, except that he was quite aware that the change might have been caused by him. The only influence that could reach from the island of Haiti to the island of Colba was the carrier virus—and even though he had only been here for two months, that was plenty of time for the virus to have been spread to Colba by a raiding party in a seagoing canoe. The Spaniards must have contracted the virus.
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